The difference between people who achieve their goals and those who don't comes down to their creative spirit. Deep within the human body like any organ or component is a spirit. It encompasses much of a person's creativity and energy for living.

People who achieve their goals, aka the better things in life, their potential, whether that be a great body and health, the creation and running of their own business, the accomplishment of any work of art, or the fulfillment of any kind of difficult dream have found a way to keep their spirit alive.

This excludes people who cheat or find corrupt and immoral ways to fulfill their goals, by the way (i.e. Taking drugs/ steroids to change their body then lying about it, being a lying manipulative wall street type who takes advantage of others, someone that steals from others...basically anyone who cheats or succeeds by immoral means). Successful people have found a way to protect their spirit from dying and from people who have given up in life, those who may have lost their spirit, which encompasses creativity and their motivation, and will to win.

Proof of this is the basic fact that a great body is something you create. You don't wake up and say, "I want a perfect body and great health" and it happens just like you don't say, "I want to run a successful business" and it happens. Everything great and worthwhile is created, and it can only be created with creativity. Once the spirit dies, all creativity and creative abilities are lost, or sold.

How does the spirit die? There are many ways, perhaps hundreds of scenarios where one's spirit dies, but let's focus on how it lives.

The first key to keeping your creative spirit alive is to make sure you don't surround yourself with peoples' whose spirits have died. People who lack creativity, passion, dreams, goals, and appreciation for the better things in life usually serve as negative influences over your creative spirit, and they've been known to destroy it, if not at least make it more unnecessarily difficult to get it out.

The second key is you have to do things that you love, especially for work, and these things must all contain a creative component. The perfect example, again, is shaping the body. Like a creative artist and sculptor, shaping and toning the body and health is a creative project. So is gardening, writing, painting, golfing, coming up with a business, and anything that takes the creative, imaginative mind to accomplish.

All of these require spirit and imagination, and they are all some of the finer things you can do. When you do your hobbies and passions, you keep your spirit alive, and those who have lost their spirits have done so because they've stopped pursuing and doing things they love and enjoy.

Third, you should surround yourself with good people, who in a general sense, are people who haven't lost their spirit either. Because of this, they generally believe that you can achieve your goals too and they believe in the better things in life. The fact that they're good is proof that they still have their spirit in tact and it hadn't been lost or corruptive.

Now this can get tricky and relative since people can be good as in paying their bills, following rules, etc but that doesn't mean they still have their spirit firing on all cylinders. Genuinely good people do these things but they also want to help others succeed: they don't get hateful, resentful, and jealous of other people they knows' successes. So surround yourself with people who still have a passion to live, create, and pursue their dreams in a good way.

Fourth, never stop believing in yourself. The number one thing that most people have done to lose their spirit is they stopped believing they could succeed at what it is they want to do. This can happen easily since dreams are fragile, which is why they involve the spirit to achieve, and just by hanging around with the wrong crowd or listening to negative pessimists who have lost their spirits can destroy them and destroy your own spirit, which encompasses your ability to believe.

So if you are aspiring to achieve or create anything in life worthwhile, keep in mind the protecting, nurturing, and value of your spirit, which is the key to succeeding. As long as you have that, you will always have what it takes to excel at and achieve your dreams. Don't let noone take it away or walk on it or diminish it, as they often will. Keep your spirit alive and away from those that have given up and you can achieve anything you set your mind to. -Greg Mickles

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Greg Mickles is a personal trainer, fitness expert, fitness model and winning natural bodybuilder. He is author of “Natural Fitness for the 21st Century” and “11 Commandments of Washboard Abs.” Greg's been a featured fitness model in three of Hall of Famer Cathe Friedrich exercise videos: “STS: Shock Training System," “STS Total Body” and “Xtrain" and QVC. Greg has served as a leading executive manager or consultant for many of the top fitness companies in the country and is N.A.S.M. certified.